10 to try: Toughest couples

This week, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz team up for high-octane action caper Knight and Day

By
Laura Chubb
30 June 2010

This week, Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz team up for high-octane action caper Knight and Day. In that spirit, we’ve compiled a list of our favourite big-screen combating couples.

1 Star Wars: Han Solo and Princess LeiaPlayed by: Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher
She’s more no-nonsense than precious princess throughout the Star Wars series, but it’s Return of the Jedi where Leia really comes into her own. Spurred on by a pre-frozen-in-carbonite love confession to Han at the end of The Empire Strikes Back, she starts the threequel strangling Jabba the Hut and freeing her man, allowing the duo to end the saga shooting out a victory in the forests of Endor.

2 True Romance: Clarence Worley and Alabama WhitmanPlayed by: Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette
You’d think True Romance’s dippy couple would be too wrapped up in their sickly love affair to spring into action, but the forever puckering-up pair turn out to be more than a match for James Galdofini’s gangsters – never more so than when Arquette faces down the big man himself with a corkscrew.

3 Mr and Mrs SmithPlayed by: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
The film
itself divides audiences, but there’s no denying this is one of action’s best-cast couples: both charisma-filled and handsome enough to fit the slick spy bill, and neither finding any trouble landing punches or spraying bullets. Plus, the chemistry is undeniable – unfortunately for Jennifer Aniston.

4 Speed: Jack Traven and Annie PorterPlayed by: Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock
One of the most memorable action escapades ever committed to celluloid, Speedthrows together a beautiful couple on a bus that could blow them to bits any minute. We admire this duo’s honesty when deciding what to base their burgeoning relationship on before the credits roll.

5 Léon: Léon and MathildaPlayed by: Jean Reno and
Natalie Portman
It’s an awkward and deliberately unanswerable question as to whether this combo constitutes a couple, but whether father-daughter or something more salacious, Leon and 12-year-old Mathilda make one hell of a team beating Gary Oldman’s corrupt cop.

6 True Lies: Harry and Helen TaskerPlayed by: Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis
Questionable though it is that Harry should use his counter-terrorism resources to find out if his missus is doing the dirty on him (what would the Governator say?), all comes good in True Lies when Curtis’s unforgettable striptease awakens her very own inner spy.

7 The Incredibles: Mr Incredible and ElastigirlVoiced by: Craig T Nelson and Holly Hunter
It helps this pair’s crime-fighting skills no end that they’re computer animated. But setting aside that unfair advantage, they make a refreshingly human portrait of an all-action couple: Mr Incredible sprains his back at inopportune moments, and Elastigirl worries if her costume makes her bum look big.

8 Date Night: Phil and Claire FosterPlayed by: Steve Carell and Tina Fey
This unlikely action equation adds up to an amusing gangsters-versus-Average-Joes pursuit through New York City following a case of mistaken identity. We love Carell’s feeble tough-guy talk and the pair’s sluggish escape across a boating pond amid a hail of bullets.

9 Natural Born Killers: Mickey and MalloryPlayed by: Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis
These two are without doubt the scariest couple on our list. Their killing spree across America might be action-packed – taking in rattlesnakes and Robert Downey Junior’s dodgy Aussie accent along the way – but they’re the pair we’d be least likely to invite to a dinner party.

10 Killers: Spencer Aimes and Jen KornfeldtPlayed by: Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl
Actually, we might take Mickey and Mallory over this charmless pair, currently sullying silver screens in action-‘comedy’ Killers. Dulling synapses with their anodyne antics and ripping off True Lies to lesser effect, we only hope it helps the world realise that charisma-void Kutcher should stay at home and let wife Demi Moore bring home the (beef) bacon.